The Great Pumpkin
by AlwaysCastle
Summary: She wanted to feel the warmth of him by her side as she baked him a pie from her mother's recipe. Curling up to him in front of the fire and celebrating their first actual holiday since they got together. She couldn't wait to share that with him.


_**The Great Pumpkin**_

"So I was thinking." He said, catching her hand as she walked around the car, swinging their arms back and forth. "This year we should dress up as a pair."

"Oh?" She asked, smiling over at him as they walked up the path towards the farmhouse. She could see the field of pumpkins behind it, a fenced in area on the other side with cows, their tails swishing , ears waggling as they ate the grass.

"Batman and robin?" He asked with his own skeptical grin on his face. "Superman and Lois Lane...to cliche huh?"

She gave him a look, one eyebrow raised and the corner of her mouth quirked.

"Sherlock and Watson?" He asked receiving another look,"The X men?"

"All of them?"

He chuckled, "No... you can be storm... sexy, white hair ...or you could be all blue and naked..." She frowned at him, her face in clear warning before he went too far and the words slipped from his mouth "Mystique...APPLES!" He yelled when she grabbed his nose.

"Keep. Thinking." She said, sliding her finger down the length of his nose giving it another small squeeze. And then she grinned pulling herself into his side, cheek on his shoulder as she hugged her arms around his, letting him guide them towards the patch.

After a short silence, him with his head bent and brow creased in thought, Kate snapped her head back to him having been watching the cows. "Cheech and Chong?"

"We are picking pumpkins, not smoking them, Castle." She hip checked him, holding onto his hand as he bumped away from her, "we are having such a nice day, I really don't want to have to arrest you."

"Please arrest me." He said with a smirk, holding his arms out in front of him, a silly pleading look in his eyes. "lets play, Cops and Robbers." He grinned with a wag of his eyebrows.

"Don't tempt me Castle." She replied stepping in towards him. "You said I don't have to be gentle with the cuffs...I don't have to be kind with them either." She let go of his hand, bring it up in front of his face as she rubbed her thumb and index finger together, moving towards his ear.

"Message received." He said with a gulp, ducking his head as he moved quickly away, walking backwards towards the stand and the pumpkin patch.

Kate shook her head, a smug smile on her face as he bumped into the stand, knocking over a stock of Indian corn. Kate laughed, as he fumbled to pick them up, a leaf catching in his hair, and pulling it as he set the stock back up.

She laughed again, ignoring the disheveled, embarrassed smile on his face as he disappeared around a corner, leaving her by herself with the cows, the breeze and the sweet autumn air.

She could smell it all around her.

The scent of autumn and every memory it brought, carrying her into the present and daydreams and wishes she had for them.

Spices, pumpkin pie in the oven, the taste of sweet cider on her tongue. She wanted to feel the warmth of him by her side as she baked him a pie from her mother's recipe. Curling up to him in front of the fire and celebrating their first actual holiday since they got together.

She couldn't wait to share that with him.

Kate sighed, pulling herself out of her daydream, and walked towards the pumpkin patch. And as she did, she could hear the wind in her ear, the black and white spotted beasts nearby and the crisp leaves underfoot. She loved the rustling crunch sound they made as she waded through them, felt them as they broke under her heel, shattering into bits and pieces as they scattered the ground.

Kicked up by her feet, blown into the windy autumn day.

The various colors, rolled, hooked, grabbed and tumbled in one another, catching at the edges and bringing them along in a swirling dance. She wanted to twirl with them, let herself be swept up by the wind, or gathered into his arms. And when she did stop, having given into the spark in her chest, Kate wobbled slightly on the spot and came to a still in the middle of the pumpkin patch.

But where _was _ he?

"Castle?!" She called out, her voice echoing outwards into the sunny day. But he didn't call back to her.

The only thing she heard was the cows mooing on the other side of the barn, and the leaves banging against each other as they blew in the breeze. Like tiny hands clapping, feather light against each other as she rubbed her own hands together against the chill of October.

Kate looked around, a stack of hay bales in front of her, seen over the copious amounts of pumpkins waiting to be picked. She bent down, smoothing her hand along one gourd, feeling the cold round surface, the dimple and then the rough bark of the stem as she wrapped her hand around it. Kate brought her lip between her teeth, pushing her hand underneath the pumpkin, cradling it in her palm before lifting it.

"Hey Castle!" She called again, rising up and holding the pumpkin in her arms. "What about this one?!"

Still nothing... but then she heard it, a grunt far off. There was no one else around, and Again, a grunt, Kate turned towards the barn, and hugged the pumpkin to her.

"Kate!" His voice floated in the air, sharp and rising in strain as he yelled.

"Where are you?" Kate asked, spotting a path between the pumpkins.

"By the cows! Come help me with this!"

Kate's brow creased but she trudged on, wind playing with her hair, tossing it this way and that before she made it into the cover of the barn and it settled messily around her face.

"Where?" She asked, just as she spotted his ass sticking out from behind a large bale of hay, a cow munching away at it.. "Castle." Her voice came out exasperated, and she made her way to him, leaning against the fence.

"Oh." He said, straightening up. "There you are, I found it." He said excitedly, eyes lit up and grin in his face. He had a damp spot on either knee, having been kneeling on the ground, bits of hay stuck to him, catching on the sleeves of his jacket and he brushed them aside.

"Found what?" She asked, just as a cow stuck its big head through the gap in the fence and nudged the gourd with its nose.

"The great Pumpkin!" He stepped aside revealing a giant pumpkin. It was laying on it's side, and appeared it had large indent underneath.

Kate's eyes grew wide, and she adjusted the much smaller one in her arms before sighing at him. "Castle." She waved at the huge gourd, "We can't put that in the loft, let alone pick it up." She scowled. "Plus it has a squoosh in it."

"A what now?"

Kate rolled her eyes, "You know, squish, like squished." She said demonstrating by smacking her hands together, and pressing them into each other in front of his face.

"Smoooshed?"

"Squ -ooshed," She said, enunciating it, lips puckered out at the oo sound.

He grinned, tilting his head to one side.

"What?"

"You're cute.." He said, a crinkle at the corner of his shining blue eyes.

"Cute? What do you mean by cute?" She hugged the pumpkin closer to her chest and narrowed her eyes.

"I mean, well. _Cute_, you're cute." He stepped around the pumpkin, resting a hand at her elbow and smoothing it up and down her arm. "Like this wittle pumpkin you have here... we shall call it..."

"Don't say oatmeal."

"Gourdy..." And then he grinned.

"Cute yourself." She said pinching his cheeks and tapping the large pumpkin with the toe of her boot. "Now... what about squishy here."

"I want it," He said leaning over and stroking it lovingly, "it'll rest perfectly, and won't roll around, I can put a a...face! with slanted eyebrows!" He said excitedly, pointing his own fingers downward above where eyes would be on the big pumpkin. "Maybe make it arms and OH it can be a troll or a -" At the slow shake of her head and a purse of her lips he literally stomped his foot like a small child, "But Kate! Wouldn't that look so cool by the stairs!"

Balancing her pumpkin under her arm, she placed her free hand on her hip, "How are you going to get it there? and don't say crane... Or forklift."


End file.
